INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Two-time WNBA All-Star Caitlin Clark made one thing perfectly clear Monday — she enjoys playing for coach Stephanie White and anyone who infers otherwise is just plain wrong.
A few minutes later, White said she also appreciates coaching Clark.
Two days after cameras caught the Indiana star and the Fever coach engaged in what appeared to be a brief sideline spat, Clark and White explained the confrontation was not the result of some deep-seeded dispute but rather the result of two highly competitive women fighting to win a game.
“I think a lot of those things happen all the time,” Clark said Monday. “I know there’s a camera on me and that’s how it’s going to be, but there are a lot of people out there in the media or on TV that think they know a lot of things and they’re just blatantly wrong about a lot of things. I ride with Steph, I ride for these girls. Steph has my back more than anybody.”
What fans saw Saturday, though, was White appearing to confront Clark who responded by putting her arms in the air. White then pulled Clark and plugged in rookie guard Raven Johnson for Clark. White has since said she was merely challenging a player to perform at a higher level.
But on social media, the fierce postgame reaction focused largely on whether the incident may have exposed a rift between the two and whether White might be fired. They spent Monday taking turns passionately expressing their unhappiness over how the exchange — and their relationship — were characterized by outsiders.
“As far as we were concerned, the moment died right then,” White said. “We can’t control the outside narrative. We can’t control where people choose to take a snippet of an instance in a game or whatever it might be and run with it. We know that people are always going to have an opinion about what we’re doing in here, people are always going to have an opinion about Caitlin. It’s the reality of the world we live in, the reality of the job we have. But it’s not the reality of what the relationship is like.”
It’s been an understandably frustrating start for the Fever and Clark, who missed 31 games last season with an assortment of injuries. Rather than starting this season as the title contenders many expected to see, the Fever fell to 4-4 with Saturday’s 100-84 loss at expansion Portland.
Clark, the former Iowa star and the NCAA’s career scoring leader, has struggled in her comeback, too. She’s made just 39.3% of her shots and only 33.3% of her 3-pointers this season and last week’s West Coast trip wasn’t any better.
She finished Saturday’s game 1 of 7 from the field with six points and no 3s while trying to play through foul trouble. Clark went 4 of 19 from the field in last week’s two games, finishing with 22 points, 12 assists and six turnovers. Her defensive play also has come under fire.
Indiana hosts Atlanta and Angel Reese on Thursday.
Off the court, Clark has been dealing with a sore back, which kept her out of the first matchup against Portland, May 20, and prompted league officials to warn the Fever about not listing Clark on the team’s injury list before the game.
Yet White has continued to defend one of the league’s most popular players, and Clark said she appreciates the support she’s received from the 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year.
“When I got hurt at the Connecticut game last year, like I bawled in Steph’s arms,” Clark said. “That’s somebody I will ride for for the rest of my life. Those are moments that people don’t see. People just sit on their phones all day, they don’t see those moments. They don’t see the moments where we come into work, they don’t see the moments that absolutely suck that people have your back. They think they know everything when in reality they don’t have a clue.”
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